


Time is out of joint

by kimabutch (CWoodP)



Category: Rusty Quill Gaming (Podcast)
Genre: Canon-Compliant, F/F, Grieving, Hurt No Comfort, I also didn't mean to start quoting hamlet, I was trying to write fluff and then... I didn't, but apparently I can't help myself
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-18
Updated: 2020-01-18
Packaged: 2021-02-27 15:13:00
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 802
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22299118
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CWoodP/pseuds/kimabutch
Summary: The time is out of joint. O cursèd spite,/That ever I was born to set it right-- Hamlet (1.5)Time has gone wrong for Marie Curie.
Relationships: Eldarion/Marie Curie (Rusty Quill Gaming), Marie Curie (Rusty Quill Gaming)/Eldarion
Comments: 12
Kudos: 28





	Time is out of joint

There had barely been time, when Eldarion left, to mourn her. Marie was officially a criminal by then, a known collaborator in the near-destruction of Prague, but that mattered less with each passing day as news came of the riots sweeping across Europe. People were already going missing and communication systems breaking down, and Eldarion became only one of the many senior agents that the vast Harlequin network could somehow no longer reach. 

Eldarion was so much more than that, though, and even as Marie heard daily rumours of the Meritocrats losing control of city after city, she searched for Eldarion. It was difficult, getting Einstein to talk even somewhat coherently about what had happened to the Meritocratic mercenaries and why Eldarion had disappeared alongside them; it was even more difficult to allow herself the hours needed to personally investigate the failed Gate spell in Rome. But Marie was nothing if not persistent, and Einstein eventually teleported her to the correct location, showing her the shards in which the hostages, but not the mercenaries, were still visible. 

She gave herself five minutes alone in a corridor of that abandoned villa, doubled over against a wall, her heart threatening to burst through her chest and one hand over her mouth to stifle dry sobs. Five minutes, and then she straightened herself up and walked off to find Einstein. 

She had to get back to work. She didn’t have time to waste on waiting. 

* * *

Nor is there time now, as Einstein hurriedly tells Marie about the return of the mercenaries, about how Hamid and Azu are here now, waiting to see her, breaking all protocol. That there are others from the disappeared group waiting outside. For just a moment, Marie’s heart leaps from her control with a hope she hadn’t allowed it in over a year. She’s torn between the surety that this is another trap of the infection and a naive wish for this to be real; between the knowledge that Eldarion would not hesitate to come to her immediately and the aching need for her to have made it back alive.

Before she can quell her hope, Azu and Hamid are in front of her, and she’s asking them about Eldarion, and they’re telling her, and Marie feels the room fall away.

* * *

Years ago, when things were easier, Eldarion had taken Marie to a demiplane that she had discovered. Planes had never been Marie’s area of study and she had her apprehensions about Plane Shift, but she watched the way that Eldarion’s perfectly-composed mannerisms dissolved when she spoke about the project, and Marie was convinced. 

In the moments before the spell, Eldarion held Marie’s face in her hands, kissed her softly, and explained, once again, how it would work. Her words were tender and soothing but carried an undercurrent of excitement — the duality of Eldarion’s composed, soothing calmness and her at-times reckless passion. Even as the world had gotten harder and Eldarion had tried to tame her own imprudence, Marie always loved that spark in Eldarion’s eyes. 

Marie watched her casting, fascinated by every practiced movement of her body and every confident word from her mouth. As the spell began to take effect and the winds rushed towards them, their fingers intertwined and Marie squeezed her hand in readiness. Eyes closed, they stepped. 

Marie could never forget that feeling of leaving the world behind, trading it instead for that nauseating wrongness — the world rolling under her feet, every painstaking movement spanning miles, her body falling and stretching and rising over space and time. And then Eldarion took her waist and pulled her closer, her arm wrapping around her and anchoring her, and Marie knew that she was safe. 

* * *

In this stranger’s office in Cairo, Marie wants to reach for Eldarion. She’s trying to turn now, but her movements feel sluggish as time seems to bend and the room shifts nauseatingly around her, and Marie can almost feel Eldarion’s presence beside her, holding her. A presence of tranquility and ardour that could steady her shaking or draw her to the wildest equations and theories. A presence that was always supposed to exist in Marie’s world, whether or not they were in the same space. It was never the plan for Eldarion to die first. They were supposed to have time. 

But time is wrong now, wrong like a Plane Shift, wrong like a world that’s decimated by an infection that no one understands, wrong like the emptiness in her bed and the silence on the end of the Sending stone that Eldarion gave her. Wrong like eighteen months of grief warped into one moment in front of strangers. 

It’s all wrong, and she’s the one who has to make it right. So she takes a breath and turns back to Hamid and Azu. 


End file.
